


Fall Into the Sea

by unicornpoe



Category: Captain America (Movies), Captain America - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - No Powers, Blatant Manipulation of Traditional Selkie Lore to Suit Author’s Needs, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Ireland, Islands, M/M, Magical Realism, Marriage But In A Highly Unconventional And Not-Endorsed-By-The-Law Way, Mutual Pining, Post-Serum Steve Rogers, Pre-World War II Bucky Barnes, Selkie Bucky Barnes, Slow Burn, Steve Has A Dog Named Cap
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-04-11
Updated: 2019-07-04
Packaged: 2020-01-10 20:26:23
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 15,255
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18415229
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/unicornpoe/pseuds/unicornpoe
Summary: In which: Steve Rogers is a lonely, island-dwelling man who can't forget the war.In which: Bucky Barnes is a charming, confused selkie who can't forget Steve.In which: they fall in love.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Why, hello.
> 
> So, I don't really know what happened here. But I saw a tumblr prompt on Pinterest and, after some encouraging Twitter convos and a couple of hours of brainstorming, I decided I was probably put on this earth to write it. This _is_ a WIP, but I have several chapters written already and the whole fic plotted out, so I think it will be quicker to update than many of my other WIPs. Plus I'm ridiculously inspired, so I'll be writing about these boys in any bit of free time I stumble across ;)
> 
> The only warning I have for this chapter is: that Steve has a dog named Cap, and that fact alone is one of the most embarrassing/delightful things my brain has ever come up with, so, yeah. There.
> 
> Enjoy!

There is an island on the edge of the sea.

It’s painted in shades of gray and black and brilliant, blinding green, rimmed in a rocky maelstrom of ocean and buffered on all sides by temperamental winds. When the rain falls from one direction, the sea sprays up from another, and mist coils gently around every crevice and jagged precipice.

There is a cliff on the edge of the island.

It’s tall, and made of chalky white stone that crumbles away in handfuls and drops into the yawning sea below. Grass grows in valiant clumps along craggy overhangs, and bright yellow island flowers cling to the rock with spindly roots.

There is a house on the edge of the cliff.

It’s tiny, made of wood and whitewash and metal. At the windows, pale white curtains block any outside view; there’s a path of dark stones leading from the shore, up the cliffside, and to the door. Under a tarp behind the generator next to the house, there’s a motorcycle, gathering dust in places that the wind can’t reach.

There is a man on the edge of his mind.

He lives a slow-motion life of quiet and solitude, and sometimes the loneliness inside of him rages as loudly as the thoughts in his head.

***

It’s almost always cold out here, on the edge of the sea. The ocean pummels the rocky shore just visible through the window above Steve’s kitchen sink, gray water blending into gray pebbles until it all descends into a rocky vortex before his unfocused eyes, and he can feel the chill wind seeping in through every crack in his home.

He rinses the last of his dishes and then dries them off, placing them in the metal rack on the counter. They drip onto the plain granite countertops.

Shivering a little, Steve grips the edges of his cardigan and wraps it a little tighter about himself, padding on socked feet over to his armchair as he does so. Power isn’t out, thanks to the generator Natasha convinced him to install last summer, but he knows his signal will be spotty, so Steve just throws a few more logs into the wood stove and settles back into the chair without bothering to turn the television on. He picks up his book—a novel Nat or Clint or Sam left when they visited—and begins to read.

It’s quiet. Nothing but the waves thrashing the shore, the rain hitting his window panes, the tick of the clock above the mantle, the eager crackle of the flames. It’s… peaceful. Peaceful, and echoing, and empty.

That’s what he wanted when he moved out here to an island at the northernmost tip of Ireland. Peace from the memories haunting his sleep, quiet from the screams that still echoed in the back of his mind. Natasha says he’s running from something he doesn’t want to face; Steve says nothing, but privately agrees. He thought he could leave the war in the country it took place in, but now he’s realizing that more of it crawled inside of him than he knows.

It isn’t like moving out here really helped. It’s just Steve, and his thoughts, and his dog—but it’s better than staying in New York, where every loud noise was an enemy just waiting to descend. It’s better than trying to pretend he’s ok in front of people who don’t believe his lies.

Steve shifts in his chair, scratches absently at his beard, flips a page that he hadn’t really comprehended. He hears Cap’s claws clicking softly on the hardwood floor as he makes his way over to Steve’s chair.

“Hey, buddy,” Steve says, grinning and abandoning his book easily. He stretches his hand out, rubbing the soft golden fur around Cap’s ears with the tips of his fingers. Cap pants happily and slumps against Steve’s legs, tongue lolling, droopy eyes closing, and whines with anticipation as he pushes the silky dome of his skull up into Steve’s cupped palm. “Did you miss me, all the way across the room?”

Cap’s ears twitch as he moves his front legs a little stiffly, collapsing more fully against Steve, and Steve’s smile fades slightly. He and Cap have been a team for nearly ten years now, and for the last two or three it’s been starting to show. In the stiffness of Cap’s joints, the mellowing of his temperament, how long it takes him to get up and moving in the morning, Steve’s sees evidence of all of that time, and it makes a hot, tight knot of fear curl at the base of his throat. He’s had Cap since his junior year of high school. Cap was one of the few living things waiting for Steve when he got back from his second tour of Afghanistan, and he was the only living thing that let him cry or shake or hide in silence without prying. Steve doesn’t know what he’ll do when Cap is gone—he can barely even think about it.

“Missed you too,” Steve says, and rubs that place right above Cap’s swishing tail. He’s long ago abandoned any shame connected to having a dog as the only regular source of conversation he has. He has so many other things to be ashamed of, that one seems hardly consequential.

Cap barks, and Steve smiles, and outside, the waves moan.

***

Steve’s house can barely be called that.

It’s a cabin, really, or a hut if you’re feeling a bit judgemental. It’s five rooms big—bedroom, spare bedroom, kitchen-dining-room-combo, living room, bathroom—and one floor. The front porch is as many square feet big as three of the rooms combined.

His bedroom is at the very back of the house, just down the hallway from the kitchen, and so it’s very easy to hear any activity going on outside in the stormy dark. It’s very easy, for a person who cannot turn off the alarm lying dormant within them at all times, to be on high alert.

He sits in his queen sized bed by the light of a tiny lamp, Cap on the mattress beside him, and listens.

There’s someone outside.

They aren’t knocking, which is what makes the fine hairs along the back of Steve’s neck and forearms stand up slowly. The rain has lightened some, no longer pounding the tin roof of Steve’s house with relentless persistence, and Steve can hear the crunch of the stone pathway leading up to his porch clearly. He can hear the creak of the wooden boards beneath someone’s feet, and the irregularity of the creaks tells him they’re walking unsteadily. Stumbling.

Out of the corner of his eye, he sees Cap’s ears flick upwards, and his nose lifts off of the floral printed bedspread. Steve slips out of bed quietly, and makes his silent way down the hall, every stealthy instinct ingrained in him by the army kicking in with an electric thrum. His breath feels hot in his chest.

He considers, as he comes in view of the front door and sees a wild figure outlined in moonlight through the pale curtain, grabbing a knife from the drawer in the kitchen—but quickly decides against it. Whoever it is outside Steve’s house, they clearly aren’t doing well, and Steve is clearly bigger than them. Steve is clearly more powerful than them. Steve already knows he’s capable of awful things in the name of self-defence. He’ll be fine.

_You’ll be fine,_ he repeats to himself, and doesn’t jump when Cap pushes his wet nose into the back of Steve’s knees.

Steve breathes in deeply when his hand meets the cool metal of the doorknob; the sound is harsh in the relative quiet of the room. He slides back the deadbolt with a loud click.

The figure outside the door sways crazily, long hair shifting in the wind in bedraggled strands, and Steve braces himself and swings open the door.

The person falls forward into the doorframe, and without thinking Steve stretches out both arms and catches them. They’re ridiculously, completely, soppingly wet, and he feels the freezing sea water soak through the fabric of his shirt immediately upon contact; the person’s hair gets in his mouth a bit, plasters itself over his cheeks and chin, and it’s salty and cold, cold, cold.

They are also naked.

“Oof,” says Steve, and pulls the person inside, grateful that they seem conscious enough to move their feet a bit. He slams the door shut, and the person curled against him jumps a little. Steve locks the door hastily with one hand, juggling the intruder in his other arm and then avoiding Cap’s eager sniffing and yipping and underfoot shenanigans as he maneuvers them, lurching, into the spare bedroom.

Steve hits the lightswitch with his elbow and it flickers once before covering the room in dim yellow light. The person—man, he thinks, going by the size and shape and feel of them against his chest—makes a faint noise of protest, the first sound Steve’s heard out of him yet, and he finds himself apologizing softly.

“Alright,” Steve murmurs, getting them over to the small bed and tugging the covers back. He deliberates for half a moment, and the man shivers violently, so Steve sighs quietly and picks him up, depositing him in the bed and pulling the covers up before he can get an eyeful of something he really has no business looking at. He pulls them up to the man’s chin, tucking them around his shoulders and waist and legs, and adds the quilt from the foot of the bed for extra measure.

There’s a heated blanket in Steve’s closet, and he grabs it quickly, plugging it in and draping it over the man. It heats up fast, he knows, and that’s a good thing: it’s the beginning of November, and the winds here on this island are bitingly cold this time of year, especially in a storm, _especially_ at night. This strange visitor needs to get as warm as he possibly can as quickly as he possibly can.

Backing away, Steve looks down at the man’s face for the first time. And it’s… not a bad face. Steve would go so far as to say it’s really quite a nice face, actually. The man’s cheeks are sunken and pale with the cold, and his tightly shut eyes are outlined in shadows of fatigue, but this doesn’t hide the undeniable beauty of him: full, wind-raw lips; dark eyelashes, long enough that they fan gently over the tops of his high cheekbones. His hair, clumped together in bedraggled strands where it fans across his pillow and sticks to what’s visible of his neck, is the dark color of walnut hulls. It soaks the fabric below his head.

“What do we think of him?” Steve murmurs aloud to Cap as the golden retriever goes to the end of the man’s bed and sits, head cocked ruminatively. Steve sure doesn’t know. He acted quickly because the army instilled promptness in him, a propensity towards leadership, the skills to Always Do The Right Thing—and before that, his Ma instilled basic human kindness in him, which one might argue runs just as deep and twice as true.

Cap glances back at Steve once, eyes soulful, and then he clambers up onto the mattress. He settles down gently next to the man, careful not to jostle him, and Steve hears a faint murmur of something that might be approval echo from behind the seal of the man’s lips as Cap rests his head against his thigh.

Well. That settles that, then.

Steve nods. He feels awkward, suddenly; too big for the tiny room, and out of place watching a man he doesn’t know sleep in Steve’s own bed. Hands plucking at the damp spot the man left on his henley, Steve backs out of the room but leaves the door open. He wanders to his bedroom, and sets a timer on his phone for thirty minutes.

He’ll check on Cap and the man when that goes off. For now—knowing that there’s no way in hell he’ll ever get back to sleep after this—Steve changes his shirt and then his pants for good measure, trading a pair of flannel pajama bottoms with tiny bows and arrows on them (a gift from Clint, he’s pretty sure) for a pair of gray sweatpants. Just in case the man wakes up. He doesn’t want to look like an idiot, after all.

***

Every half hour throughout the night, Steve checks on the man. He watches the rise and fall of his chest beneath the layers of blankets, and presses a finger to the leaping pulse buried under the clammy skin of his neck. He smiles a little bit at Cap, watchful and calm as ever, perched next to the man and guarding him as he does Steve. It doesn’t make sense, this strange and swift attachment Cap has developed for someone Steve has never before seen on their tiny island, but none of this makes sense. Why shouldn’t he want to protect a man who materialized seemingly out of the salt of the sea?

By the time dawn begins to filter in crimson swaths through the curtain over the window, the man is finally looking better. He has a bit of color in his cheeks, a faint blush pushing to the surface under the shadow of several day’s worth of collected stubble. His breathing is regular now, not harsh and jagged, and the rasp that had been squeezing out of him all through the night is fading. Sleep has smoothed the furrow from his brow; rest is taking some of the shadow away from his eyes. He looks almost comfortable, at home here surrounded by four walls, a man, and a dog who have never seen him before.

Steve turns to leave the room, prepared to resume his half hour checks, when a soft noise stops him in his tracks.

The man is moving in bed. He shifts beneath the covers, moving his head from the right to the left, and then blinks open his eyes.

For a moment, Steve and this man simply stare at each other, and the room is still.

And then it isn’t.

The man bares his teeth in a snarl that seems barely human, struggling out from under the blankets with wild, choppy motions. He jostles Cap, who looks simply affronted, but when the man sees the dog, a look of real fear crosses his features. With a noise like a gasp, the man hurls himself out of Steve’s bed; he drops to the floor in a tangle of blankets and wild hair and naked limbs, scrambling until he’s backed in the corner of the room and panting, chest heaving up and down and up and down with a noise that rips the air.

Immediately, Steve drops to his haunches and extends his hands, palms up, chest unprotected. It’s a submissive position; an unthreatening one.

_Get on their level and neutralize yourself_.

“Hey,” he says as softly as he can, voice closer to a tuneless murmur than actual words. “Hey, it’s ok, you’re safe. I won’t hurt you.”

They stare at each other, a thread of tension between them that’s so taught Steve fears for its snap. The man is shivering again—whether from cold or shock or fear Steve can’t tell. The savagery fades from his face, muscles relaxing, but he pants through barely parted lips, and his eyes are enormous.

“I’m Steve,” Steve continues gently, keeping his tone measured and deep. “Steve Rogers. I found you last night. I brought you inside, away from the storm. You are no prisoner here.”

On the bed, Cap whines low in the back of his throat, peering over the edge of the mattress. His ears are pressed close to his head, his dark eyes round, and he watches the scene unfolding before him with caution. Steve wants to sink his fingers into the soft, thick fur around Cap’s neck, but he stays still.

The man’s eyes flash to Cap, then back to Steve—they are beautiful, Steve sees with a distracted sort of surprise. Bright, and gray-blue, like the face of the ocean out Steve’s window.

He keeps gasping, sharp and harsh. He needs to slow down before he hyperventilates—Steve knows better than most that panic attacks in front of strangers are the worst kind of humiliating, even if they’re nothing to be ashamed of.

“This is my dog,” says Steve, nodding at Cap. The man doesn’t look away from Steve. “His name is Cap. He’s my best friend, and he won’t harm you, either. I promise.”

Outside, the echo of waves crashing against the cliff side is loud and encompassing. The man slowly, slowly begins to unfurl from his tight knot of a position. He stares, unblinking, as he moves.

“I’m going to stand now,” Steve says, and waits for the man’s jerky nod before doing so.

He takes two slow, deliberate steps closer, right palm still extended up. The man is trying to stand, but he’s weak; he leans heavily against the wall, head tipped back so he can keep Steve in his line of sight.

Steve is silent. Finally, the man takes Steve’s hand.

His palm is cool, and soft; his fingers grip tight enough to bruise as he lets Steve pull him to his feet.

They face each other again. The man is naked still, but he doesn’t seem embarrassed—just wary. Steve doesn’t let his gaze wander.

The man kicks his cracked lips. “My name is Bucky,” he mutters. His voice is dry and raspy, and carries the heavy, melodic accent of this island, vowels round and uneven in length, Rs heavy.  

Steve smiles carefully, mouth closed, eyes warm. It’s an ambassador’s smile. “Hello, Bucky,” he says. “It’s nice to meet you.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello! Thanks for sticking around :) Have some soft bois

Bucky relaxes visibly when Cap trots out of the room, leaning back against the wall as his shoulders sink and his breath evens. He crosses his arms over his chest again, but it seems like a gesture of relaxation rather than self-consciousness—his feet are still planted wide, and his cheeks are still pale, entirely free from the embarrassed blush Steve is almost sporting on Bucky’s behalf.

Bucky moves like a wild thing; he looks like he came up from the ocean, born of salt and wind and spray.

“If you want to stay here, I can go find you something to wear,” Steve says, with as little awkwardness as he can. He half-raises his hand to gesture out the room, and then drops it again, and then wipes his palm on his sweatpants. “You can borrow something of mine.”

Throat rippling with the tension of his swallow, Bucky nods. His head moves in unnatural angles, as if he’s unused to the gesture. His hair is dried in salt-stiff strands to the skin of his neck, his temples, behind his ears.

“Because we’re strangers,” Bucky says, still in that same dusty, odd sounding tone, stormy eyes trained on Steve with a level precision that makes him feel like he’s pinned under a sniper’s scope with nowhere to run. “That’s why you are offering me clothing. Yes?”

“Um,” says Steve. He glances out the ajar door of the bedroom, catching a glimpse of Cap as he disappears into Steve’s room. He wants, suddenly and desperately, a moment away from humans. This inhuman human. “Yes, and. And also because the wind is cold today…”

Again, Bucky nods, watching Steve with that gaze so intense it could almost be classified as a glare. There is that furrow back between his brows, and Steve can’t tell if it’s anger or confusion or fear or pain. He honestly doesn’t know which would be better.

Bucky lowers himself slowly to sit on the edge of the bed, pulling his knees up and wrapping his arms around them. He props his chin on his right leg and Steve begins to back out of the room, affixing that smile back onto his features.

“Alright, just a sec, pal,” he says, and waits for Bucky’s blink of acknowledgement before he’s off like a flash.

Steve takes a moment onces he gets to his room, sinking into the chair he keeps by the door and resting his head in his hands. He hasn’t had another person in his home since Natasha and Sam and Clint were here nearly six months ago. He’s barely spoken a word aloud to someone who wasn’t Cap, if the people he makes his living fixing cars and motorboats and broken tractors for don’t count. Having a person infiltrate his small, private home is… it’s… it’s a  _ lot. _

He closes his eyes, and takes three deep breaths: in, out, in, out, in, out, eight counts each. It’s what his therapist told him to do before he moved away, and it almost always works to calm him when small things like that raise his heart rate. He had asthma pretty terribly as kid, and while it barely ever flares up anymore, situations with a high emotional aspect sometimes serve to shorten his breath, to make him gasp.

This will be fine, he knows. Logically, it’s ridiculous to be unsettled by another life breaking into the absolute solitude of his routine: Bucky will be on his way as soon as Steve can make sure he has somewhere safe to go to, and then Steve will be back to his empty house, his days and days and days of speaking not more than three words aloud, the lonely echo of the wind trapped in the curve of the cliffside…

Lonely, maybe, but safe.

Something cold and damp presses against Steve’s knees and he smiles into his cupped palm, trailing one hand down to scrub affectionately at Cap’s head. His dog yips lightly, sniffing Steve’s knees until Steve laughs and straightens and stands.

Back again. Onward and upward.

***

Steve’s shirt is enormous on Bucky—it hangs off of his shoulders comically, and the sleeves drape off of the ends of his fingers in a sort of amusing way, and while the chest is way too loose, it fits him fine enough around the waist—the sweats fit him pretty well, pooling only a little over the tops of his bare feet.

Bucky is smiling when he steps out of the spare bedroom and meets Steve in the kitchen, anyway. It’s a shy, wary expression, but there’s real friendliness behind it, which takes Steve aback for half a second. Bucky is, well, he’s… he’s kind of adorable.

“Thank you,” Bucky says, voice rough. He seems almost completely better than he did just half an hour ago—bordering, Steve, thinks with faint confusion, on giddy. Bucky keeps looking down at the clothes on his body with an absurd amount of satisfaction, and even though Steve feels like there have been too many emotions in his tiny house in the past thirty minutes, he can’t help but smile. “I enjoy human clothes. Soft.”

Steve blinks.  _ Human clothes…?  _ “Right,” he says, flipping the eggs in his frying pan when he hears them sizzle a little bit too intently. He has to turn away from Bucky to do so, but he glances back over his shoulder as frequently as he can. Cap isn’t in the room, and Bucky is almost unsettlingly relaxed as he settles in one of the wooden chairs at Steve’s kitchen table. “So, Bucky, I’m going to ask you a personal question. You aren’t required to answer me, of course, but if you did, it would help me help you get home as soon as possible.”

Bucky’s eyes are wide again, trained on Steve avidly. His hands rest on the surface of the table, and they clench a little as he tips his head quizzically to the left.

“Where did you come from, Bucky?”

His face clears. He smiles slightly, the corners of his mouth tipped up, and Steve notices for the first time how full his lips are as he comes close to set a glass of water near Bucky’s left hand.

“The sea,” says Bucky, gaze flickering into something unfocused and distant. For half a second, Steve thinks he sees the reflection of the waves in Bucky’s irises, tumultuous and gray—but that’s impossible. Bucky’s back is to the ocean. “I came from the sea.”

And yes, ok, clearly this man is probably not mentally balanced. But for a few seconds, Steve is absolutely enthralled.

Until Bucky picks up the glass of water and drains it in one long gulp, lets it drip down his chin, and then wipes his mouth expansively with the back of one hand.

“That’s great,” says Steve, and then winces. But he doesn’t know what else to say. “Let me try something else, um… where do you live?”

“Oh.” Bucky’s eyes shift to catch Steve’s line of sight, and they’re just that: eyes. He seems thoroughly disenchanted, such a stark difference from three seconds ago that Steve’s has mental whiplash. “Oh, on land. In the flat above Harrison’s Shoes.” He wrinkles his nose. It’s horrifyingly cute.  _ Cute.  _ Jesus Christ. “Even though I hate shoes.”

Steve nods. He knows that place; he fixed Harrison’s century-old pickup truck back in September, and was paid with a very nice pair of loafers and an envelope full of questionably oily money.

“Do you live alone?” Steve asks, scooping a fried egg out of the pan and onto a plate. He does the same with the other egg, listening carefully to Bucky’s silence, and then turns around warily.

Bucky is glaring at him. “I am not insane,” he says.

“I know that,” Steve responds immediately, even though he really, really doesn’t. Steve can feel his skin heating with a blush, and it’s half embarrassment and half righteous indignation, and he thought that maybe he’d gotten his fervent emotions under control after the army but  _ apparently he was wrong.  _ “I just want to make sure you get back home safe—you were pretty out of it last night and I don’t want—”

Bucky scoffs, rolling his eyes and brushing his tangles of dark hair out of his face simultaneously. “Forget last night,” he says, and he is so far above the levels of flippant someone who appeared half-dead last night should be, Steve doesn’t even know what to say. “That was just a stupid mistake on my part. I went swimming, and I forgot how it is when… well. I forgot. Plain and simple. It will not ever happen again—”

“Wait wait wait wait,” Steve says, plunking both plates of eggs down in front of Bucky so he can hold a hand up, forcing Bucky’s ridiculous torrent of words to a halt. “Wait. Bucky. You went  _ swimming.  _ In the  _ storm.  _ In the  _ stormy ocean.” _

Bucky sighs. He looks small and angry in Steve’s baggy t-shirt, and there’s a healthy flush to his skin now. He looks, in short, nothing at all how he did last night, or even an hour ago. “It hasn’t been long,” he says completely nonsensically. “I forgot how it was for humans. It was half witted.”

“Humans?” echoes Steve faintly, a little bit distraught. “ _ Half witted? _ ”

Pulling one of the plates closer to him, Bucky tucks in without waiting for toast. He isn’t looking at Steve for what seems like the first time since he woke up, and Steve feels weirdly cast-off without the floodlight intensity of those irises. He drops into the chair opposite Bucky and joins him in eating, just because he has nothing better to do.

“I feel fine now,” Bucky says, talking with a half-full mouth. It should be revolting. “It’s been a while since the last time I was up here, and some things slipped my mind. It’s always difficult for me to wake up after it’s been a while, and I was especially disoriented this time since you were a stranger. Also:  _ dog. _ ” He shudders. “I’m not overly fond of dogs.”

“Nothing,” says Steve, chewing methodically as he stares at Bucky’s bent head with absolutely no shame, “you just said makes even the slightest bit of sense to me.”

Bucky rolls his eyes again. He’s almost down with his eggs, and Steve would feel some pride in his cooking if he’d thought Bucky had even had time to taste it. “No, I do not assume it did. No matter; it doesn’t have to. You aren’t aware of it, just like all people.”

_ Addicted to crack,  _ Steve decides, deciding to abandon the process of following this conversation.  _ Or surprise lobotomy victim. Probably crack.  _ “Ok,” he says finally. “Well. Uh. How are you feeling?”

Bucky waves a dismissive hand, and the sleeves of Steve’s shirt fall down his forearms and over his wrists, making paws of his fingers. He pushes them back up absently. “Fine, thank you,” he says. “It never lasts long.” He smiles that small smile at Steve again, and the cloudy light streaming in through the window catches at his hair; it brings out flashes of auburn and gold that Steve hadn’t expected. “Do you have a bathroom facility?”

_ It’s the twenty-first century, _ Steve wants to say, but he refrains. “Sure thing,” he says instead, pointing through the doorway. “Down the hall, first door on the right,” he says, and watches in silence as Bucky leaves the room.

Cap wanders in soon after Bucky is gone, and Steve wonders, before he can stop himself, if Cap somehow knew he should stay away while Bucky was in the room.

“Hey, buddy,” Steve says. He gets up, collecting his and Bucky’s dishes, and places them in the sink. He’ll do them later.

Cap barks, nails clicking on the floor as he paces eagerly before the front door. He hasn’t been out yet this morning. Steve fed him before Bucky awoke, but he hadn’t dared leave the house. As it is, he’s not positive he should now, but if he leaves the front door open and watches Cap from the porch, it should be fine.

Steve unbolts the door and swings it open, holding it in place as Cap squeezes by Steve’s legs and meanders onto the porch. It’s growing sunnier now: the rays peak between great, billowing sheets of cloud, pouring down onto the hyper ocean beneath and staining the water brokenly gold. The sunrise is pale yellow with the storm, and the beauty of the scene before Steve nearly takes his breath away.

As such, he doesn’t notice until Cap is barking himself shrill at the object by his feet. When he does, he stares.

It’s a coat. A long, luxurious fur coat, perfectly dry and impeccable. It looks so, so, soft; the dark, coffee-colored fur waves gently in the faint wind coming in from across the coast, reminding Steve of something that he can’t place. He bends, and picks it up, and—yes. Yes, it’s just as soft as he thought it would be. The fabric feels almost like silk under his calloused fingers, and he clutches it close to his chest, revelling in the way it brushes against his skin. It’s warm, too, like a living entity; there’s something about it that feels almost alive, or like it should have more spirit in it than a fur coat ever should.

It must be Bucky’s. That’s the only thing that makes sense, because there’s no way there were  _ two  _ strange people on Steve Roger’s front porch last night and one of them left their expensive-looking coat there and ran off into the storm. Although Bucky doesn’t particularly seem like the kind of guy that would have something like this—although he had been  _ completely naked.  _ They guy is… well. Eccentric enough that Steve can kinda see it.

Steve drapes the coat over one arm and heads back into the house, Cap trotting amiably by his side. The screen door shuts with a bang behind them just as Bucky re-emerges into the kitchen.

Bucky’s eyes fly to Cap, and he stiffens noticeably.

“Oh, sorry, Bucky,” Steve says, and puts a hand on top of Cap’s head as Cap sits by Steve’s feet. Cap is panting just a little bit, tongue lolling out, and he honestly looks more harmless than Steve does, even in his pajamas—but Steve gets it. Some people just aren’t dog people. “Cap, go sit in the living room. Go on.”

Obediently, Cap shambles off into the adjacent room, and Bucky tracks the movement with a kind of alertness that reminds Steve of the army. Diligence.

“I apologize,” Bucky says. The line of his shoulders is taught, like a bowstring pulled back and ready to launch, and his mouth is set in a harsh way that looks unnatural on him. He seems like someone who laughs a lot, Steve thinks, and it’s unsettling to see him so serious. “As I said, I. I’m not used to dogs yet.”

“That’s ok, it’s not a big deal,” says Steve, and decides to ignore any puzzling wording just for the sake of his own sanity. He holds up the coat a little bit, waiting until Bucky’s attention is back on him, and smiles awkwardly. “Um. Is this yours? I found it outside…”

The smile that Bucky breaks into is one of the most beautiful sights Steve has ever seen. It flips his stomach. He thinks:  _ there it is. _

“Yes!” says Bucky, taking a few steps closer to Steve, seemingly having forgotten the possible threat of Cap in the other room. His hair—almost completely dry now—falls into his face, and he pushes it away with the back of his wrist. “It was too wet last night, I didn’t want to bring it inside.”

That’s confusing for a lot of reasons that Steve doesn’t want to concentrate on right now. He just works on giving Bucky a smile that feels awkward and dim next to the thousand-watt brilliance of Bucky’s expression and steps forward, draping the coat a little bit awkwardly around Bucky’s shoulders.

Bucky freezes.

_ Oh my god,  _ Steve thinks, and then,  _ I’m an idiot,  _ and then, simply white noise. “Shit, I’m sorry, I…” he says, and takes several steps backwards, until his ass comes up against his dining room table and he sits down before he can fall down. He doesn’t know how to function as a normal human being anymore, he just doesn’t, that’s why he moved all the way out here in the middle of nowhere, where he only has to see other people once or twice a week and even then doesn’t really have to talk to them. He doesn’t remember normal things like: it is probably  _ very weird  _ to wrap someone you’ve just met up in their coat that you found on your front porch. Things like  _ that. _

“It’s… fine,” Bucky says, smile dimmed to half its previous strength. He looks deeply considering now; there’s that furrow between his brows again, but it’s taken on a shade of confusion rather than pain. He doesn’t seem creeped out, or like he wants to get a restraining order, but Steve’s not sure that this is the man he should base his perceptions of social conventions off of. Bucky is just staring down at the coat that’s now enveloping him, hands clinging to the edges, tugging it close around himself like a cloak.

“Sorry,” Steve says again, and glares furiously down at his lap. He can feel how bright his face is burning. Sam would be making so much fun of him if he were here. “Do you, uh, do you need me to walk you somewhere? Drive you? I can.”

“No,” says Bucky, abrupt and a little bit breathless. He’s swaying back and forth on his feet, like grass in the wind. “Thank you for the offer. I  _ should  _ be getting back now, though. I need to check in back home.”

“Sure,” says Steve. He stands, because Sarah Rogers didn’t raise an asshole, and forces himself to look Bucky in the eyes again. The embarrassment radiating off of Steve’s skin in heat waves is making the room muggy. Bucky looks weirdly regal in his majestic coat, head tipped a little bit, and Steve swallows painfully. “Sure you’re ok?”

The corner of Bucky’s mouth twitches. “I am now,” he says.

They look at each other. They’re good at that.

But then Bucky ducks his chin almost shyly, cheeks brightening into an attractive shade of pink, and looks up at Steve from under his eyelashes, and Steve is absolutely, utterly poleaxed. “See you around, Steve,” he says with a tiny grin, and then he walks out the front door without looking back.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And here we begin to branch off into the land of Me Making Up Selkie Lore To Suit The Needs Of This Fic. Just a heads up that I'm aware I'm wrong about most of this, and if inaccuracies like this offend you, this might not be your fic laksdjf.
> 
> To everyone who has been reading: Thank you! I love you! You're all the real MVPs :D
> 
> <3

Steve’s feet pound against the sand as he runs.

The wind blows against his face, hard enough that it hurts. He comes out here every morning that he can, and runs on the strip of dense sand between the roiling waters to his left and the jut of peaked rocks to his right. The curve of this beach is quiet but for ambient sound, and always entirely empty of any other people, and Steve likes it this way. He likes the image of the sun, striking the water gold, and the caw of sea birds just for him. He likes the solitude of it.

He stops, and bends at the waist with his hands on his knees. His chest heaves as he pants, and the wind gusting into his face is making it hard to catch a breath, so he turns around with his hands on his hips.

Steve’s eyes slip closed. The sunrise bleeds warmth through the sweat-damp fabric of his shirt, and soaks his clammy skin.

He takes the path back up to the house, quiet.

***

There’s a text from Natasha waiting for him on his phone when he gets back, and he opens it with one hand as he begins making himself some oatmeal with the other.

**Natasha:** hey island boy are you still alive

**Steve:** And thriving. Have you murdered your husband yet?

**Natasha:** he’s growing on me. think i might keep him around

Steve smiles, setting the phone down to stir his breakfast. He appreciates these semi-daily check ins more than Nat probably knows. It gets easy to forget he’s not the only person left on earth, all the way out here, and communication from his friends always helps to ease that odd, gaping feeling.

**Steve:** I’m sure Clint appreciates your consideration.

**Natasha:** haha

**Natasha:** seriously tho, how are u?

It takes Steve a beat longer than it should to answer that question. It occurs to him that he’s… not really sure. He doesn’t consider how well he’s doing very often, although he’s self-aware enough to know that it’s because he’s scared of the answer. He lives his life like a routine, like order, like he’s still in the army: wake up, get dressed, feed Cap, run, eat, etcetera. Every day, over and over again. Quietly.

He takes his oatmeal over to the kitchen table and sits, because his Ma told him once that it was a bad idea to eat standing up and he’s never forgotten. Cap, curled under the table, barks happily as Steve rests his feet against his warm side.

**Steve:** Ok :)

He cringes at the answer. There’s no way that will be good enough.

Natasha’s text comes through in record time.

**Natasha:** what’s wrong?

Steve swallows a bite of food, and sighs. She’s in an interrogation mood, he sees, and he just doesn’t think he can take that right now. Searching for something to divert her attention, he types before he can think, hitting send and immediately regretting it.

**Steve:** Yesterday a man collapsed on my porch and I brought him inside for the night and he didn’t have any clothes except for a really fancy coat. Also isn’t it midnight there? Shouldn’t you be sleeping or something?

**Natasha:** STEVEN

**Natasha:** STEVEN GRANT ROGERS

**Natasha:** WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK??!!??! ELABORATE

Steve grins again, unable to help himself, and leans back a little in his chair.

**Steve:** Nothing to elaborate on, really. His name’s Bucky. He was pretty young, and likely insane. He was scared of Cap.

_ And he was gorgeous,  _ Steve’s brain unhelpfully supplies, but he ignores it valiantly. That’s irrelevant, and besides, there’s no topic on earth that Natasha loves more than that of Steve’s (nonexistent) love life.

**Natasha:** I THOUGHT THERE WERE NO OTHER HUMANS ON THAT LONELY LITTLE ISLAND YOU LIVE ON

**Steve:** There are other humans, there are just… very few of them. Also, please turn off capslock, you’re scaring me.

**Natasha:** i’m screaming

**Natasha:** clint is screaming now too. we’re sitting on our couch screaming.

**Natasha:** HI STEVE THIS IS CLINT I WANT TO KNOW IF HE WAS HOT

Steve laughs out loud, and Cap barks again, getting up and shoving at Steve’s legs with his head until Steve reaches down to give him a pat. There’s a small, tenacious sense of warmth glowing behind Steve’s sternum—that same feeling he gets whenever he talks to his friends. He misses them, suddenly—Nat, and Clint, and Sam, and even Clint’s horrible dog—with a stab of  _ something  _ that makes him sad.

**Steve:** Did you miss the part where I said he was crazy? Because he was definitely crazy. Out of his mind. Possibly on drugs. Insane. DIDN’T LIKE CAP.

**Natasha:** was

**Natasha:** he

**Natasha:** hot

Oh, fuck it.

**Steve:** ...Yeah

He can imagine their shouts of glee from here, all the way on the other side of the world. Nat—or maybe it’s Clint, who knows at this point—lets loose a string of keyboard smashes so very long that Steve can’t see the screen for the tears of laughter that pool in his eyes. They send him a picture: Clint’s head shoved up under Natasha’s chin, his eyes squinty with laughter, both of their mouths open in a victorious scream as Natasha pumps the air beside her head with one small fist.

Steve saves the photo to his phone.

***

Most of Steve’s days pass in relative isolation. He rides his Harley into town every Wednesday to shop, and to complete whatever odd jobs the townspeople ask of him, but that’s his only scheduled day of face-to-face human interaction, so he always knows when to expect it.

Today is Monday. There’s nothing planned for today, other than what he does every afternoon at this time.

It isn’t fun, but it’s routine, and routine is what will save him in the end.

Steve gets out his sketchbook. It looks used on the outside—the spine is a little cracked, the cover bent and the edges worn down soft and blunt—but inside, every single page is blank, just like it has been since Steve’s therapist suggested he pick drawing back up again two years ago.

In theory, it’s a great idea. He always used to think he would be an artist as a kid; entertained pipe dreams of going to art school, of having his work in galleries and museums and hanging on people’s living room walls. Drawing, sketching, painting—art is one of the only things that ever gave him true, unadulterated, guilt-free pleasure.

The war changed that. The war changed him.

There are things in his head, now. Things that he can hide from for the most part, things that he can shove behind a wall of to-do lists and chores and work and distraction, things that shrink back from the light of day, waiting dormant until the night. Things that stain his mind and his heart and now, now, now flood out every single time he starts to draw.

It’s all that will come out of his hand and onto the paper. The horrors that he saw when he was in Afghanistan, the horrors he experienced. Every time he tries to get the pictures out of his head and onto a piece of paper, they change somewhere between his mind and his hand, and only tragedy comes out.

The first time he tried to draw after he came back, he cried for two hours.

But he tries again, every day, dutifully. He sits here in his chair, sketchbook open on his lap, pencil clasped tightly in his right hand, and stares at the blank page for thirty minutes, and tries to forget everything that will not leave him alone, and fails.

Steve breathes out slowly through his nose, closing his eyes. The paper is textured and familiar under his hands, and he presses his palm down firmly in the middle. He doesn’t want to do this anymore. He just wants to be able to—

A knock on the door.

Cap perks his ears up at Steve’s feet, standing stiffly, and Steve’s eyes fly open. Today is  _ Monday.  _ Today isn’t a people day. He  _ knows _ that today isn’t a people day.

Unless…

_ Bucky _ , Steve thinks as he stands, and is immediately dismissive of that idea, and annoyed that it brings him a tiny flash of… not hatred. It’s probably just someone from town. It’s probably just someone who needs their roof patched, or their car jumped. Probably.

But when Steve sees his visitor’s silhouette through the curtain, he knows that’s not true.

“Back, Cap,” he says, and Cap lingers by the kitchen table as Steve opens the storm door.

Bucky smiles at him through the screen door. He looks good today, and—this is a development—he’s fully clothed. He’s wearing jeans and boots and a big, light gray cardigan that’s made out of something soft and warm looking. The top half of his hair is pulled back in a loose knot, and the rest of it brushes in dark waves at the bottom of his chin, the top of his shoulders. His hands are clasped behind his back, and he watches Steve expectantly.

Steve opens his mouth to say  _ what are you doing here _ and “You look nice” comes out instead.

He can feel himself blushing already. Great. Just awesome.

Bucky’s smile widens, and the wind blows a few strands of hair across his cheekbones, and Steve swallows. “Thank you, Steve,” says Bucky. “You look nice, too.”

Steve glances down at himself. He’s wearing his oldest, most boring pair of khakis, and a flannel. He looks like a lumberjack. A reclusive lumberjack. He snorts. “Yeah, thanks, Bucky.”

But Bucky doesn’t seem to pick up on the sarcasm. He just ducks his chin and blinks those storm-colored eyes, tucking his loose hair behind his ear with one hand and keeping the other hidden. “Can I come in?”

“What? Oh, yeah, sure, sorry,” Steve mumbles, pushing the door open and then stepping back as Bucky moves inside.

Bucky’s eyes dart to Cap, and the line of his shoulders stiffens, but he makes no comment. He doesn’t look scared, precisely: just aware. On alert.

Steve knows the feeling.

“So, what brings you here?” Steve asks after the silence between them has grown too expectant for him to be comfortable with. He feels like he’s waiting for something to happen, and Bucky’s liquid gaze brushing against Steve’s  _ everywhere _ doesn’t help.

Bucky blushes this time, and it’s a sight that brings Steve more enjoyment than he thinks it probably should. He’s so caught up in admiring it that he misses the fact that Bucky is moving closer until suddenly there is a hand on his arm, warm and gentle, squeezing above his left elbow with just enough pressure that Steve leans in to it before he can pull away.

“Steve,” Bucky says, and then he’s even closer somehow, somehow without Steve realizing it, and then he’s up on his tiptoes and leaning in, and then his lips brush Steve’s cheek, sweet and soft and entirely unexpected, and.

And Steve is gaping. He can feel it. He feels like he’s caught in a riptide—turned upside down and hurled at the bottom of the ocean, flipped and disoriented enough that he doesn’t know which way is up and which way is down or how to breathe.

Nobody has touched him in a very, very long time.

“What…” he begins, and doesn’t know what else to say. The place on his cheek where Bucky’s lips touched burns, and the place on his arm where Bucky is still holding on absolutely  _ sears _ and he doesn’t know if it’s painful or not. He can’t remember if it’s painful or not.

It’s less who is doing the touching, and more that it’s happening at all.

Bucky pulls back. Steve wants to crawl into his bed and pull the covers up over his face and never come out. Or demand that Bucky does it again. He can’t decide.

“What,” says Steve, and then finds the rest of his sentence. “The  _ hell. _ ”

Bucky tips his head to the side, watching Steve from under long eyelashes.

“Because,” he says, and then he brings both hands in front of him, and there’s a pair of silver rings nestled there in his palms, simple, catching attention with their dull shine.

Steve stares. “Isn’t—are those—are those engagement rings?”  

“Well,” Bucky says, laughing softly, looking down at the objects he’s holding. His smile has gone soft and warm around the edges. “We… we should get married by human customs as well, I think.”

“... _ What?” _

Bucky’s brow furrows. His smile turns into a slightly grumpy frown, which is less happy but equally adorable. Slowly, like he doesn’t know he’s doing it, he pulls the rings closer to his abdomen, shutting his fingers around them. “What do you mean, what?” he asks.

“I mean—I mean—” Steve stops, and takes a deep breath, and tries again. “We aren’t married.”

Bucky glares at him for about ten seconds, eyebrows thunderous, full lips a straight, no-nonsense line. Steve shrinks a little bit into himself, and Bucky’s gaze softens with something that looks like realization.

“Oh,” he breathes, mouth going round and soft again. “You didn’t know.”

_ Know what?  _ Steve wants to ask, but he can’t seem to make his words escape past his head. He regrets getting out of bed this morning.

Bucky sets a hand on Steve’s arm again; his movements are gentle, like he thinks it’s comforting instead of just another thing that’s making Steve’s brain go haywire. “The coat,” Bucky says, as if that explains anything. “My coat. You gave it back to me.”

“And this has  _ what _ to do with marriage?” Steve asks, his voice just a little bit on the shrill side. He doesn’t bother feeling embarrassed about it, though; at this point, it’s a miracle he has any control over himself at all.

Bucky’s fingers tighten around Steve’s arm almost imperceptibly. His skin is cool.

“I’m a selkie,” Bucky says.

It takes a moment before that word makes any sense in Steve’s head. He remembers—vaguely—stories his mother used to tell him: stories of women who changed into seals in the sea, and the men who would capture them and keep them captive until they could find their own coats again.

Fairy tales. They were fairy tales.

And nowhere did they mention selkies who were men. And nowhere did they mention  _ immediate marriage through coat transferral. _

Apparently reading Steve’s look, Bucky grins a knowing grin. “Oh, the books have it all wrong, you know,” he says. “There are all kinds of us: men, women, and others. And stealing our coats really won’t have any effect on us, other than pissing us off.”

“How,” says Steve, and then “Why,” and then, finally, “Marriage?”  

Bucky opens his mouth, then shuts it again. Steve hears Cap stand behind him, and come over to press his warm weight against the side of Steve’s legs, and he reaches out blindly to scratch between Cap’s ears. Bucky’s eyes flicker to Cap, but don’t linger.

“Could we sit down?” Bucky asks. “I can see I have a lot to explain.”   


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey all! Sorry for the late update--my internet shit itself and Endgame happened everything went to hell adlsfj but WE'RE BACK NOW.

Bucky places the rings in the center of Steve’s dining room table, lined up side-by-side with the edges touching.

Steve makes tea.

The sun is disappearing swiftly behind a legion of storm clouds. They’re drifting in quickly, in huge, dark chunks, hanging low enough that Steve can tell the storm will be a heavy one. He can smell it on the air that drifts in through his open window: dark, and living, and earthy. Damp.

He pours their tea with an admirably steady hand, and breathes deeply of that scent. Maybe it will settle the odd pounding of his heart, like the kick of a bass drum. Maybe.

“I didn’t mean to surprise you with this,” Bucky says. They’ve been silent since they moved to the kitchen, at least verbally—what’s hanging unsaid between them is louder than either of their voices. Now, Bucky’s voice is low and a little bit beautiful, and Steve is glad of that as he turns around.

“I really thought you knew,” Bucky continues. His eyes follow Steve’s movements: tracking the arc of his arm to the table, and finally settling on the thick clay mug Steve sets before him. Bucky curls his palms around it, but doesn’t drink. “I forgot that not every human does. I forgot that most humans don’t.”

“That’s ok,” Steve says, even though he’s not really sure if he agrees with himself or not. Bucky seems so dejected now, though, and Steve doesn’t like that. He sits in the chair directly across from Bucky, Cap at his feet, and sips his tea.

Bucky looks up at him. “Is it?”

“I mean… no, not really,” Steve confesses, and flinches at the way Bucky’s face falls. “Just. Just. Why don’t you explain, please?”

“Right,” Bucky says. He nods to himself, tracing the lip of his mug with one fingers. “Ok. I suppose I should start with some basic facts: the way for a human to initiate marriage with a selkie is to give their coat back to them without being prompted.” His expression turns a bit wry as he glances at Steve, lips quirked up to the side. “That’s a surprisingly rare occurrence, I might add. Mostly, when a human finds a selkie coat, their instinct is to keep it. Sometimes it’s because they know what it is, and they think the only way to have a selkie is through force, or because they just think it’s something they can sell for money. Either way, they very rarely give them back like… like you did.”

Steve nods at the table. He remembers the way he gave Bucky’s coat back to him. It was… weird and embarrassing. And, apparently, a proposal. Or something.

“So, um, when you—” Bucky mimes pulling the coat tighter about his shoulders, eyes big, smile soft. “—wrapped me up, well. That was unexpected, and rare, and so that is why I reacted so oddly. I almost couldn’t remember what to do.”

“Yeah, I…” Steve looks anywhere but at Bucky, face hot. “Sorry ‘bout that.”

“No!” Says Bucky with surprising vehemence. Steve jumps a little, unused to loud noises in his space, and makes the mistake of meeting Bucky’s eyes as Bucky leans over the table towards him. They’re dark, and Steve catches a flash of the ocean in them again, roiling and fathomless. “Do not apologize. You gave it  _ back  _ to me. You’re obviously one of the good ones.” His grin turns sly. “I’m lucky to be married to you.”

“Bucky,” says Steve, a little desperately. He has no idea what to do. None at all. “Bucky. I can’t marry you.”

“Why not?” Bucky asks, sounding genuinely bewildered. He looks a little bit lost sitting here in Steve’s kitchen, a little bit small in his too-big cardigan, a little bit wild with his ocean eyes and his otherworldly face. Steve doesn’t want to disappoint him.

“I just…” he trails off, sighing.

“Do you love somebody else?” Bucky asks. There’s a weird hesitance to the way he asks it, and...

And Steve  _ does not know this man,  _ Steve doesn’t really  _ believe _ this man, because  _ selkies aren’t real…  _ but here he is. Here he is, feeling bad.

“Bucky,” he says again, and makes his tone as firm as possible. He doesn’t miss what this does to Bucky: the man straightens in his chair, eyes a little bit darker even than they were before. “Selkies aren’t real. And I don’t  _ want _ to be married.”

There’s that adorably grumpy look again, back in full force. Bucky crosses his arms over his chest and actually  _ pouts _ at Steve, bottom lip stuck out and everything. He slides down a little bit in his chair, but then his feet bump Cap and he sits back up again in a hurry.

“Steve Rogers,” Bucky snaps, gaze like steel. “That is a very rude thing to say.”

“Bucky—” begins Steve, equally heated, before he realizes that he doesn’t even know this crazy person’s last name.

“ _ Barnes, _ ” Bucky says. “And it’ll stay that way, pal, selkies don’t take their human partner’s names.”

“Jesus Christ,” Steve says, slumping against the table with his head in his hands.

“I can’t believe how intensely you just insulted me,” Bucky says, slurping loudly as he takes a sip of tea.

Steve squints up at him through his fingers, watching as Bucky tries to hide the fact that he’s just burned his tongue. He wants to laugh, but that seems inappropriate, so he doesn’t.

“Prove it.”

Bucky raises a single eyebrow. “Excuse me?”

“Prove it,” Steve repeats, sitting up straight again. He smiles a little, scratching his beard lightly. “Prove to me that you’re a selkie and then I will  _ consider _ letting you live under the delusion that you and I are married.”

Bucky’s eyes flash. He stands, and extends his hand.

“You have yourself a deal.”

***

It’s fucking  _ cold _ out here.

Cold, and Steve feels a little bit stupid, really.

He’s standing at the edge of the sea, hands in his pockets. Bucky faces Steve: his back is to the ocean and to the wind, and his hair wips into his face like long-fingered tree branches, slicing the determined set of his jaw into a million fractured pictures. His beautiful coat is folded carefully in half across his arms.

They haven’t said a word since Bucky fetched Steve from his house and led him down the path to the shore. They don’t say a word now as Bucky unfolds the coat and drapes it over his own shoulders, sleeves hanging limp and empty. 

His eyes flash like the edge of a knife when the sun hits them just so. It’s very clear that he’s making sure Steve is watching when he slides one arm into a sleeve, and then the other.

Steve’s breath catches in his chest.

He blinks.

He looks.

Bucky is gone.

Instead, perched on the rock where his feet had been planted moments before, there is a seal. The seal’s pelt is oil-slick-dark, gleaming like it’s wet but moving in the gale like it’s dry; the seal’s eyes are huge, and round, and soulful, and—and beautiful. Like the face of the ocean.

Steve wants to come closer, to spread his palm over the warm-looking fur, but he can’t move. He sits down instead, right there on the rocky shore. His legs fold beneath him like paper.

“Bucky?” he whispers. He feels foolish saying it, and he feels worse not. He knows that somehow, in the space of time it took for his eyelashes to meet, for his lungs to expand, Bucky had not disappeared: Bucky had changed. He knows that these are true lies that have been spun.

Bucky’s mouth opens, and the sound he lets out is such an odd mixture of things. Equal parts wail, bark, and huff of breath—and the hair on Steve’s arms is standing up, and there’s a heaviness to the air around them that just hadn’t been there before. Bucky moves instead: a disjointed, gangly sort of hop that startles a laugh out of Steve like a punch to the sternum.

Bucky Barnes is a selkie.


	5. Chapter 5

There is no great, showy moment when Bucky changes back. It’s like before: Steve blinks, and Bucky-as-a-human is standing before him, naked and shivering in the breeze and holding his coat bunched up in his arms.

Steve can think of a million things he wants to say, a million questions he has to ask. He’s still gaping a little, but he can’t make himself stop.

“Do you—are you—don’t you lose a lot of clothes if they disappear every time you change?”

Bucky lets out a surprised bark of a laugh, slipping the coat back around his shoulders and nudging it closed in front of him without pulling it all the way on. His bare feet cling to the rocks beneath him. “I suppose,” he says, and he grins at Steve, one eyebrow raised. “Can I borrow something of yours?”

“You didn’t return the last things,” Steve mumbles, but it’s half hearted at best, and he knows he’s going to say yes. He still feels like his eyes are bugging out of his head, a little disoriented by the wonder he just witnessed.

“Don’t worry,” says Bucky, crossing the dark expanse of shore between them on steady legs. The wind whips his hair across his forehead, his cheekbones, into his eyes. He bumps Steve lightly with his elbow when he reaches him. “I’ll bring ‘em back.”

***

They go back inside, and Steve makes coffee while Bucky changes into sweatpants and a t-shirt, because apparently the only thing Steve knows how to do when under emotional duress is make hot beverages.

Cap sits curled on the couch in the living room. His tale thumps rhythmically against the cushions as he watches Steve with large eyes and he sits up a little as Bucky re-enters the room, but he doesn’t come over.

Steve presses a mug into Bucky’s hands without speaking, then picks up his own. He feels much too restless to sit, so he leans back against the counter, ankles crossed, and watches Bucky examine the coffee with deep interest.

“What  _ is _ this?” Bucky says at last, after he has smelled it and looked at it from every possible angle. The steam wafts up into his face, and he inhales deeply, brow furrowed.

“Coffee,” Steve says. He can feel himself smiling a little bit. “You drink it. Go on.”

Bucky’s eyes flick up to Steve’s, then back down again, before he slowly raises the mug and takes a sip.

A beat of silence. Then:

_ “Oh my god.” _

Steve laughs out loud at the look on Bucky’s face—eyes wide, mouth open a little bit, equal measures shocked and delighted—and Cap sits all the way up in the living room, tail wagging. “You like it?” Steve asks, even though that much is obvious. Bucky is looking at the coffee like it’s liquid gold.

“ _ Steve, _ ” Bucky says, taking another drink and then making the exact same expression after he’s done. The sheer joy on his face is filling a tiny, buried place within Steve’s chest with warmth; it’s nice to make someone else this happy with something so utterly simple. “Did you invent this?”

“No,” Steve grins, taking a much more subdued and less impressed drink out of his own cup. “It’s been around for ages. You can buy it in lots of places. You’ve had tea, but you haven’t had coffee?”

“Guess not,” Bucky mumbles into the cup, face hidden by the ceramic rim. He’s swaying back and forth on his feet with happiness, eyes closed. Steve suddenly itches, with an intensity that he hasn’t felt since before his second tour, for a piece of paper and a pencil. He would draw him just like that: eyelashes fanning down over his cheekbones, hair in attractive disarray. Quiet smile on his lips.

“You’d remember,” Steve says mildly, “based on this reaction.”

Bucky squints one eye open to look at him. His lips twist into a grin. “Yes,” he says.

They finish their coffee in relative quiet, standing there in Steve’s kitchen. Steve is surprised at how comfortable he is with Bucky infiltrating his space like this; how nice it is to have the shallow, even sounds of someone else’s breath mixing in with the other well-known noises here.

It’s a dangerous line of thought. It’s a  _ stupid _ line of thought. He should be discouraging any contact between them, really, if Bucky is going to interpret everything as—what? A set of vows? A promise that Steve can’t break?

It was a idiotic deal that Steve made.  _ Prove it, _ he’d said,  _ and I’ll consider letting you live under the delusion that we’re married.  _ He thinks about what Natasha would say to him: probably something like “You have big dumb bitch energy,” or another unhelpful but accurate thing. It’s a mess that Steve has gotten himself into—a confusing, unbelievable, adorable, caffeine-loving mess.

He should tell Bucky to leave.

Instead, he watches Bucky finish his coffee with gusto. Instead, he takes the empty mug from between Bucky’s loosely clasped hands, and returns the smile Bucky shoots him. Instead, he adds cream and sugar to Bucky’s refill, and presses it back into his waiting palms. Instead, he leads Bucky over to the living room with a quick jerk of his head, and forces himself to look away from the soft line of Bucky’s shoulders beneath Steve’s too-big sweatshirt.

“C’mere,” Steve says, careful to sit between Cap and Bucky on his big, ugly, floral-patterned couch. He sinks into the cushions a little bit, and Bucky does too, eyebrows lifting in surprise as he drifts down into the backrest.

Bucky shoots Cap several cautious, poorly-disguised glances. He tucks his hair behind his ears with one hand.

“Sit,” Steve murmurs to Cap, weaving his fingers into the warm fur at the back of his neck and smiling as Cap obediently curls up at Steve’s side.

Cap blinks innocently up at Bucky. Bucky blinks back.

Steve shifts forward, getting Bucky’s attention back on him, and Cap out of Bucky’s line of sight. His own coffee is going cold in his hands, but he finds that he can’t swallow anymore; there’s a lump of something tight and hard in his throat, coiling with tension and making it difficult to breathe. He’s so nervous, suddenly, for no reason at all. Or, well, for one very large reason: he fucked up. He fucked up, and he’s going to have to make this very kind, strange man sad and upset and disappointed. He’s—

“Steve?”

“Sorry,” Steve says, setting the mug on the coffee table before he drops it. His hands are shaking a little bit. His words sound strained. “Everything is just…”

Bucky’s hands are covering his. They are warm, his palms broad, his fingers long and lightly calloused. His touch makes Steve flush and shrink further back at the same time, wary.

“A lot?” Bucky offers gently. “Too much, too fast?” he smiles, just a little one, but enough that Steve notices. Moving slowly, so that Steve has time to object, he lifts one of those hands and curls it with incredible care around Steve’s cheek, his jaw. His fingers brush the edge of Steve’s hairline. “I understand.”

“Yeah,” Steve says, strangled. “Something like that.”

“It’s ok, Stevie,” Bucky says, and—and, Stevie? Where had that come from, why is it a thing, why is it a thing that Steve  _ enjoys _ —and leans in close, and kisses Steve’s cheek.

He smells like coffee, like the ocean. Like Steve’s fabric softener, clinging to the clothing Bucky’s wrapped in.

_ Things like that, _ Steve thinks as he holds himself perfectly still, letting every atom in his body zero in on the feeling of soft, heated lips brushing his cheek like he’s something special,  _ are what make this such a horrible idea. _

“Just because we’re married doesn’t mean you have to be used to it right away,” says Bucky softly, and in an entirely too reasonable tone of voice. He is still very close to Steve: Steve can feel him, a solid line of warmth against the right side of his body, comfortable and comforting. “I’ll be back tomorrow.”

 

_Oh, god,_ Steve thinks.  __Oh no.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> MY FINALS WILL BE OVER IN ONE DAY SO I WILL GOT LOTS AND LOTS OF WRITING DONE AFTER THEN
> 
> thank you for sticking with me throughout this rocky posting schedule :) your comments and kudos have meant the world to me!


	6. Chapter 6

**Natasha:** we want bucky updates

Steve groans out loud at the text that appears on his screen while he’s eating breakfast. Naively, he’d thought maybe Natasha would let that whole conversation go, but clearly that was too much to hope for.

And he has no idea how to answer. He thinks about telling her of the pair of wedding rings still sitting here in the middle of his table. He rolls his eyes.

**Steve:** Nothing to update you on, really. He came over for coffee yesterday :)

He hesitates before sending the message, staring indecisively at the smiley face. Does it seem too happy? Does it project the idea that he had a good time with Bucky, even though he really wouldn’t classify it that way? He’s about to erase it and start the text anew when Cap jostles him, and his thumb hits send before he can fix anything.

Oh well.

**Natasha:** like in a dating way or in a “we’re the only two lonely island men left in the world, let’s drink coffee together” way

**Steve:** Neither. Mostly in a “it’s cold as fuck out here, let’s drink something warm” way.

**Natasha:** god, rogers, youre so fucking boring you old man

Steve laughs a bit wildly at that. If she knew what had really been going on yesterday, she’d think him  _ anything _ but boring.

He wants to tell her—of course he does. He wants to tell her, and Sam, and Clint, and anybody who will listen. But there’s no way in hell he can do that. That’s crazy person talk. He knows it.

He sends her another smiley face.

**Natasha:** im disgusted

He smiles, for real this time. He’s known Natasha for a long time—since before he left for Afghanistan—and so he knows the difference between an actual bad mood and her regular, slightly terrifying demeanor. He’s still got a bit of fear left when it comes to her, but that’s just healthy, as Clint likes to say. That’s just self-preservation.

**Steve:** Sorry to disappoint you

He says, and attaches a picture of Cap that he’d taken a few days ago, curled up in the dog bed Steve had just purchased for him, head resting on his paws, for good measure.  

***

It’s Wednesday, which means that it’s town day.

It always takes Steve a bit of time to prepare for his infrequent trips into town. A bit of time to find his least rumpled flannel, his least paint-stained khakis; a bit of time to glance in the mirror above his tiny bathroom sink and make sure his hair and beard haven’t grown too long in the past week since he last checked, and frown at the bags under his eyes; a bit of time to fill his bike’s tank with gas, to gather the things he needs, to gather the thoughts he has.

Probably, it should be getting easier to venture into civilization. Instead, with every Wednesday that rolls around, Steve finds himself more reluctant than ever to leave the relative safety of his little stronghold. He has everything he needs here, his mind insists, and nothing that he doesn’t need. And it’s quiet, and it’s hidden, and no one looks at him with questions in their eyes.

He knows it’s not true. That’s why he makes himself leave. 

It’s just that sometimes, it feels like a strange, internal kind of war in its own way. A war he sees no way of winning.

He doesn’t take Cap with him, because he’s way too big to fit comfortably on Steve’s bike anymore, and besides, he’d just have to tie him up somewhere when he got to town which Cap likes even less than being left at home alone. It would be easier, Steve thinks, if he  _ could _ take Cap; nice to know that he has somebody unquestionably on his side, even if that somebody can’t talk, or help carry Steve’s groceries.

Cap whines softly in the back of his throat as Steve kneels down in front of him, pressing a quick kiss to the silky fur between his ears, but he doesn’t try to follow as Steve stands and exits his bedroom, shutting the door carefully behind him. He knows the drill, and he knows not to disrupt it.

Steve’s a lucky guy, to have a pal like that.

It’s still cold out today, and just as windy. The air nips up under the layers of Steve’s leather jacket, seeps through the fibers of his sweater, chills his skin; he strides around the edge of his little house, going to the area where he keeps his bike and slinging the protective tarp off of it. He folds it neatly, and places it under an upturned tote that takes up space in the cluttered carport.

It’s going to be one hell of a cold ride, he thinks, climbing on and settling in.

He’s right.

Luckily it’s only about fifteen minutes from Steve’s house to town, but by the time he gets there he’s shivering after having ridden face first at sixty-five miles per hour into a full, freezing wind.

Shivering, but smiling. Maybe he’s an idiot, maybe he’s an adrenaline junkie—but it’s nice to get his heart rate up, to get his blood pumping like that. It’s nice to have fun.

He slows down considerably as he comes up on the outskirts of town, mindful of the pedestrians that litter the sidewalks and streets here. He gets a few waves, a few polite nods, and he returns them. Everyone knows who he is, here. As far as he can find out, he’s the only new person they’ve had in this town in decades.

He parks next to the only grocery store on the island, wheels kicking up wafts of dusty dirt that dissipate quickly in the strong wind, and sticks to the brick wall of the store as he rounds the corner of the building. The shoe store is on the direct left of the grocery, wedged in tightly enough that their doors almost bump if they’re opened at the same time, and Steve remembers Bucky saying that he lives in the block of apartments right above that place. Ducking his head, he enters the grocery store quickly.

Steve has lived here long enough—has made this weekly trip frequently enough—that he could probably do his shopping with his eyes closed. He makes his way through the store on a path that his feet remember, pulling items off the shelves as he goes, and pretty successfully ignoring the round-eyed stares of the other customers and employees. It’s dimly lit in this building, especially in the back corners, but that’s fine; it’s echoingly quiet, even with the presence of a half dozen other people, but that’s fine, too.

When he pays, the man at the cash register watches him with thinly veiled suspicion, the same way that many of the islanders do. They don’t take newcomers in with automatically open arms, and Steve doesn’t blame them. As quiet as he is, as reticent as he is, he still hasn't won them over; if he’s being honest, he hasn’t really tried. They trust him enough to have faith in the fact that he won’t murder them while he’s fixing their plumbing, or shopping at their businesses, and that is enough. It’s enough.

Steve is in and out in about ten minutes. He doesn’t have any work in town this week—some weeks are like that, but it’s ok—and so he is just getting ready to load his two paper bags of necessities onto the back of his bike and head back home when he hears a voice from above him.

“Oh, hey, Steve!”

Steve jumps a little at the sound. Craning his neck back, he squints against the force of the watery-pale sun pushing through the clouds and looks up.

Bucky Barnes is hanging out of an open window, a storey above the shoe shop. He’s grinning broadly, hair blowing about his face, and waving at Steve like they aren’t making direct eye contact.

Steve opens his mouth to answer—to say what, exactly, he has no idea—but Bucky beats him to it.

“Stay there!” he shouts, and waits for Steve’s stilted nod of agreement before disappearing. A second later, the window slams shut.

And Steve… does. He stands there in the middle of a deserted parking lot, a heaping bag of groceries in either arm, until Bucky comes around the corner with his hands in his pockets and a soft, blue knit hat jammed on his head. He’s wearing the first shirt that Steve loaned him, thick, dark blue cotton, and Steve resigns himself then and there to the fact that he’s never getting it back. It looks better on Bucky, anyway.

“Hi,” Bucky says, stopping close enough to Steve that he has to tilt his head a little in order to meet his eyes.

“Hi,” Steve returns stupidly. He wishes that he didn’t always feel so out of his element with this man. Then again, he did turn into an oceanic creature before Steve’s very eyes after insisting that they’re married, so Steve supposes he has  _ some _ excuse.  

“This is not a place I ever thought I’d see you,” Bucky says, eyebrows lifted.

“Well, you know,” says Steve, shifting awkwardly in his dirty boots. “Gotta eat, and all that.”

Bucky laughs as if Steve has said something clever, nodding a bit. His gaze slides past Steve and lands on his motorcycle, and his eyes widen comically.

“Is that yours?” he asks, pointing.

“Yep.”

Bucky looks almost as bowled over as he did when confronted with coffee for the first time. His line of sight flickers rapidly from Steve to the bike and then back again. “Is it fun?”

A little bit taken back by the question, Steve takes a minute before answering. “Yeah. Yes, it really, really is. It’s the only mode of transportation I’ve got,” he adds, beginning to load his items into the saddlebags hanging off the sides. It gives his hands something to do, makes him look at something that isn’t Bucky for half a second. “But I only come to town once a week, so the novelty hasn’t work off yet.”

“Are you heading back home now?”

Steve thinks about Bucky saying that he would visit Steve again today. He thinks about the gold bands at home on his kitchen table—the gold bands that he somehow needs to return, without dimming that thousand-watt smile of Bucky’s at all. He thinks about the fact that there’s room for two people on the seat of this particular motorcycle.

“I am,” he says carefully, strapping the saddlebags tightly shut and not meeting Bucky’s gaze. “I think we’ve still got some stuff to talk over so um… if you want a ride, I’d be happy to offer you one.”

Bucky is quiet, and for a second Steve’s afraid that he’s managed to say something to offend him, but when he looks up Bucky is beaming at him with the biggest smile Steve has seen from him yet, practically glowing with over eager excitement.

“ _ Steve, _ ” he says, walking forward so quickly that he almost trips on his own damn feet. “ _ Yes. _ ”

“Ok,” Steve answers. He smiles and climbs on, making sure to sit forward as far as possible while Bucky gets up behind him. “Um, I don’t have any helmets—so sorry about that—so… hold on tight, I guess?”

“You don’t wear a helmet?” Bucky asks. Steve can hear the disgruntled frown in his voice, and is surprised by it; why should he care? “Steve.”

“Jeez, Buck, I’m fine,” Steve mumbles in embarrassment. He starts the engine to drown out whatever admonishing thing Bucky is going to say to him next, but he can still faintly hear the huffy laugh that Bucky lets out in his ear.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Up next: soft motorcycle riding! Soft wedding ring business! Soft everything!


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> HELLO!
> 
> So, yeah, it's been a while. I took a month off from this WIP in order to write [this](https://archiveofourown.org/works/19036726/chapters/45214324) 30-day OTP challenge (Stucky, of course) so feel free to pop on over and read that! 
> 
> Anyway, happy birthday Steve Rogers, this chapter is for you

Steve’s awareness of Bucky behind him is almost overwhelmingly sharp. He can feel the way Bucky’s thighs press against his hips on either side, the tight band of Bucky’s arms around his waist. Bucky’s fingers, clenched like a vice in the material of Steve’s jacket. 

Warm.  _ Close.  _

Steve’s bike, racing over the unkempt gravel and dirt roads that span the island, puts out too much of a roar for there to be conversation between them, so they keep quiet—or at least, Steve does, and he assumes Bucky does, too. He wouldn’t be able to hear him speak, anyway. Although he could feel the rumble of Bucky’s voice through his back, maybe, if Bucky spoke loud enough. Feel Bucky’s words vibrating in the middle of Steve’s sternum— 

He presses down a little harder on the gas to distract him from that imagined sensation, and the bike ratchets up with a sudden kick of speed, sending them over a grassy hill faster than Steve usually takes them. Bucky tightens his hold around Steve in every way—knees pressed to thighs, arms braced around Steve’s waist, fingers flexing compulsively in the thick, slick leather—and his head falls forward to rest in the center of Steve’s back, forehead warm between Steve’s shoulder blades. 

Steve wills himself not to stiffen, not to show how startled he is by just that much extra contact. 

It’s funny: Steve goes months without being touched by a single person, and then Bucky comes along, and they can’t keep their hands off of each other. 

Or. Well. Or something. 

“Sorry,” Steve calls over the whipping wind, and then wants to hit himself for being the idiot to try and talk while on a motorcycle when he  _ owns the fucking motorcycle.  _

Bucky says nothing. But he squeezes Steve with a little bit of extra pressure, and he doesn’t lift his head, and it feels like an acknowledgement. 

***

By the time they reach Steve’s house, Steve has finally let himself relax back into the comfortable hold Bucky has around him, not tense every time Bucky moves against him, maybe sort of enjoy the solid, trusting way Bucky’s whole body has curled so completely around Steve’s. He’s almost reluctant for them to get off: once they do, and Steve has to look Bucky in his blue eyes again instead of simply  _ feel  _ him back there, and they have to talk about things like  _ rings _ and  _ marriage _ and  _ stuff _ , then this nice, cozy spell will be shattered. He’ll have to deal with the real world again, instead of… whatever it is he just spent the past ride sinking blissfully into. 

It’s jarringly silent when Steve turns off the motor. Even the crash of waves against the shore is distant, secondary. 

Bucky doesn’t move, behind him. He’s still clinging to Steve, but now Steve can hear him breathing, and it’s that more than their proximity that makes the middle of Steve’s stomach feel warm. That steady, close rhythm of inhales and exhales, not elevated in fear or adrenaline, just… normal. 

It’s bizarrely intimate. 

Steve moves first, letting his hands fall away from the handlebars. It’s enough to prompt Bucky into action, too: he sits up, and finally the pattern of his breathing changes: he sighs, long and a little bit shaky, exhale stirring the hairs that brush Steve’s collar. His hands slide off of Steve’s waist slowly, fingers unclenching, until only their legs and hips are still in contact with each other. 

Steve stretches his right leg down until it hits the earth, puts weight on it, slings his left one off, too, and then he stands there, and looks back at Bucky. 

Bucky, who is watching Steve with a heavy, intentional gaze. As Steve stares back, the corners of Bucky’s lips curl up, like paper being licked by a flame. 

“Need a hand?” Steve asks, and then doesn’t wait for an answer. He extends his arm and Bucky grips his hand, flesh wind-cool against Steve’s. Bucky steadies himself with Steve’s grip as he joins him in standing, fingers tightening a bit as he catches his balance. 

“I’ve never done that before,” Bucky says, looking up at Steve, smiling up at Steve. His knit cap is knocked crooked; his hair, sticking out from beneath it, has been whipped in all directions by the wind, and Steve wants to brush it away from Bucky’s bright eyes and windblown cheeks—which he obviously doesn’t do. 

“I’d sort of guessed,” Steve laughs, letting go of Bucky’s hand to unload his groceries from the saddlebags. Bucky takes one of the brown paper bags in both of his arms, watching Steve as he covers the motorcycle with a tarp, where it will rest until next Wednesday. Steve climbs the creaky steps leading up to his front porch, and Bucky follows. “Did you like it?”

Steve holds the door for Bucky with one hip, meeting his eyes as Bucky walks past him and into the interior of the house. Their arms brush. 

“It was an adventure,” Bucky says—a bit cryptically, really, but then he  _ is _ a magical being, so maybe Steve should just expect that—smiling up at Steve for half a second before darting over to the kitchen. “But then,” he muses, unloading the bag onto the counter and then putting things away without even having to be told where everything goes, “I bet most things with you are.”

That gets another laugh out of Steve, a little more awkward this time. “I don’t know that that’s true. At least not anymore.”

He joins Bucky at the counter, appreciating the fact that Bucky doesn’t turn his sharp gaze on Steve after that particularly telling admission. Instead, Bucky just stretches up on his toes and puts a few cans of beans in the cupboard above the toaster oven. 

“I don’t know about that, Steve,” he says. “Living out here is enough of an adventure on its own.”

“Says the man who lives in the literal ocean.”

Bucky looks at him then, half-smile amused and devastating. “I live above a shoe store,” he says mildly. 

“Hm.” Steve folds the empty paper bags neatly, stocking them under the sink where he keeps spares. He shucks off his jacket and drapes it over the back of a kitchen chair, pushing his long sleeves up over his forearms and kicking off his heavy boots, too. Bucky, eyes on Steve, slips out of his own shoes. “Yeah, about that.  _ Why _ do you live above a shoe store? Why not stay down there on the bottom of the sea and… I don’t know, be safe?”

Bucky leans back against the counter, smile slipping slowly off of his face as he appears to consider the question. There is that charming tilt of his head that appears whenever he’s thinking, the one that turns him into a vision of lines and angles that Steve’s fingers ache to draw. Lines and curves and shades and highlights. 

“I don’t have any family,” Bucky says bluntly, and his tone is so even and regular that Steve doesn’t know how he should react. “They all died when I was young, and so I’ve lived on my own for a while now. I don’t have many friends, and…” he trails off, eyes unfocused, and the movement of his shoulders beneath Steve’s shirt as he shrugs is elegant. “There wasn’t anything keeping me down there, you know?”

Steve does know. It’s how he felt after the army: his father died before he was born, and Ma died during his first tour, and he could barely stand to be back in the city that he used to love so much—not when something there had taken her so quickly, so suddenly, without him home to watch over her. 

He had changed so much, it seemed—but nothing about Brooklyn had changed. He had grown into the wrong shape for the place he was supposed to fit in, and there wasn’t any going back; not without breaking off parts of himself that he wasn’t sure he could live without. 

So he’d come here. 

“Yeah,” Steve says softly. He tries to smile at Bucky, an understanding smile, a smile like this is something they share. Bucky’s eyes soften. “I know.”

***

Steve lets Cap out of his bedroom, grinning when the dog barks happily at him, and butts his head into Steve’s knees, seeking affection. 

“Jeez, Cap,” Steve chuckles softly, dropping to his knees and scratching behind Cap’s ears. “I wasn’t even gone an hour and a half.”

“He loves you a lot, doesn’t he?”

Bucky is standing behind Steve, close. Steve hadn’t even noticed him, even though now that he thinks about it, it’s quite clear that he’s there. 

“I know he does,” Steve says, standing, keeping one hand on the top of Cap’s head. “We’ve been through a lot, Cap and I.”

Bucky isn’t looking at Steve. His dark eyes are fixed upon Cap, and in the unlit doorway, the irises look like liquid. “Is he gentle?” Bucky asks him softly.

Cap is sitting on his haunches, tongue lolling out of his mouth, tail beating the floor as it wags. “Yeah, Buck,” Steve answers. He wonders why every conversation he has with Bucky feels so important. “He’s real gentle.”

Bucky nods. Doesn’t look up.

“You know,” Steve starts hesitantly, on a whim. “He watched over you that first night. That night that I found you. Curled up around you in that bed and stayed there the whole night. I think he likes you, Bucky.”

Cap stands—jostling Steve’s hand off of his head—walks in a little circle directly under himself, and then sits down on the empty bit of hallway between Steve and Bucky’s feet, resting his head on his paws. 

“I think,” Bucky starts quietly, watching Cap like he’s a rabid wolf instead of a quiet, silly golden retriever, moderation his movements and hesitation in his eyes, “that I’d like to pet him, if you tell me it’ll be ok.”

“It’ll be ok,” Steve says immediately, watching the way Bucky’s pale fingers twist together anxiously in front of his thighs. Steve isn’t certain of very many things, but he is certain of this thing: Cap is kinder than most humans he knows. He will never hurt Bucky, just like he will never hurt anyone unless they try to hurt Steve first. Bucky has nothing to be worried about. 

Steve sits down, right there on the cool hardwood next to Cap, threading the fingers of his right hand through Cap’s thick golden fur and grinning when Cap’s tail resumes its exuberant thumping wag. They look up at Bucky, twin looks of wide-eyed encouragement, and Bucky slowly lowers to a crouch before them. 

Bucky stretches out his arm, glancing at Steve for validation. Steve gives him an encouraging smile. 

Cap is still and calm when Bucky’s fingers meet the soft fur at the top of his head, nothing but the increased pace of his tail giving any indication to the fact that he knows Bucky’s touching him at all. 

Slowly, slowly, Bucky sits down fully on the floor, legs crossed, fingers stroking Cap’s nose. He smiles: small. Wholly beautiful.

And as Steve watches Bucky, as Steve watches Bucky pet Steve’s dog, as Steve watches Bucky pet Steve’s dog and smile and smile—

It’s just that Steve might be in trouble, here.  

**Author's Note:**

> Please come scream at me about Steve and Bucky and selkies and other stuff on Twitter @unicornpoe if you enjoyed this! (Also if you didn't).


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